Start your own print media company with MagCloud

Why start a blog when you can start a nice, glossy
print magazine? Hewlett-Packard recently launched a new service called MagCloud, which
flattens the entire magazine distribution process into one website. Give HP the content in PDF form and out comes a magazine. The cost: 20 cents per page. HP handles all the printing, mailing and subscription
management. Users can set the subscription price for their rag (above
the base price plus postage), leaving some room for profit if they choose. Gutenberg
would be proud. And so was the New York Times.

It used to be that only companies the
likes of Amazon.com had access to such print-on-demand power, but MagCloud
lowers the barrier of entry for niche blogs about gourmet cashews or antique typewriters seeking to become 'zines. Print-on-demand allows Amazon to offer a slew of
niche titles without investing in the actual books unless they’re
sold. For a blogger who’d like to see their stuff in print, it’s
the same business model: pay only for what you can sell.

Using MagCloud, a one-person blog can
go to print with only a little design experience. In fact, with sites
like FeedJournal and Tabbloid (which, by the way, HP developed), a blog could completely automate
a not-so-shabby print layout, simply by handing over its RSS feed.

It's not free: A 10-page
monthly magazine would cost the blogger $24 plus postage per year, per
subscriber. But if a dedicated audience is willing to pay a few dollars
per month so that they can hold the blog in their hands, then there’s
nothing to lose. Make that into a quarterly, annual or one-time e-book,
and the profit margin starts to grow quickly.

This could have a impact on
the already woeful print publishing industry. Though it seems like a
step in the wrong direction, the indie blogs that bite into their online
product can take a shot at their stubborn print subscribers as well.
And why not? It’s about as risky as starting a blog.